Posts: 226 to 246 of 246

Ah yes I understand now. I had forgotten about the breastplate conversation earlier where it was classified as a banded armor item. I will give a few generic itemcatogories a try.

Really though I am enjoying this game even with all the growing pains, as it is unique from other games on other platforms. In fact this is pretty much my go to game right now when I have free time to play a game. I am going to get set up with a premium account before I leave the city I am in.

Spoiler note: The Thunderbolt is a spear and can be equipped by saying "equip spear". Now I just need to find out to see what the statistics are with this weapon. While on the subject of divine weapons, know what type of weapon a Sickle of Sirius is classified as?

Hey Folks, thanks for the feedback. A telnet client wouldn't be an either/or thing. It would just be another client, like Google Home is. However my quick experiment with it failed last night, so I'll put it off for now.

The dilemma I face in audio design is this: more diverse names add general gameplay interest, but make the audio model less clear. It's fine on Google, where what you say gets converted straight to text, and then applied to the audio model. On Amazon, though, the audio model defines how the speech is interpreted. So I have to teach Alexa about each and every item I introduce to the game. When the vocabulary changes, I have to resubmit the skill for certification. Also, the more diverse the audio model on Alexa, the less good it is at recognizing specific phrases.

What this means is that the "about XXX" and "what is XXX" commands kind of suck on Alexa. And, what's worse, it is going to be hard for me to make them much better.

Let me see if there are other things I can do. I just tried "inventory name". It lists their inventory, but doesn't have "more" enabled. I could add additional detail about what they are carrying after the more. That would be one way.

I need to spend more time with the new treasure system, but it seems to be a "lot" less generous than the old system, especially when clearing a dungeon or fighting dragons. I haven't gotten anything other than experience thus far from dragons and the dungeons aren't much better. My last run net me just over a hundred gold or so in total and I haven't received anything from the half dozen or so dragons I've killed thus far. I've started to avoid the dragons since they don't seem to give out anything gold wise on a regular basis (or at all?), especially if they can still kill a character which will cost me 100,000 gold to revive. Item wise I've only gotten a Javelin from orcs or trolls (can't recall)and nothing else. Like I said it's still early, but as of right now I prefer the treasure system from before. Also, what exactly is the silver to gold rate? Gems are automatically calculated for us after the battle in a number we can hear, but in order to find out what I received from silver to gold requires me to go and check in my inventory and do some quick math.

As usual I spoke too soon on the treasure system and didn't spend enough time with it in the dungeons and I have to say I was completely wrong in saying it's a lot less generous. It seems to be just fine after I have a larger sample to compare with to the old system. The question still remains on dragons and the overworld monsters though and I will see if I can get one of them to drop something today.

Edit Okay I am definitely avoiding dragons completely for now as the risk just doesn't seem to be worth the reward. One of my characters was attacked multiple times and then bitten for 25 damage and I will now have to spend 100 grand to revive him. My reward for that fight was 5,000 experience. This was my 10th dragon or so I've fought since the new system went live and not one led to a lair or anything to offset the risk of death. The experience while nice is much easier and less risky to obtain from other fights. I will have to become a dragon slayer when I get just a bit higher than level 8. On the other hand I am totally digging the new treasure system. Even though we don't carry the other demonination such as copper and silver, it's still nice to see new dialogue when looting. Awesome work.

frequently when I kill things, there is no treasure drops at all in many of my fights in the overworld. I haven't tried dungeons yet because I haven't found any to explore yet where I am. Maybe there are just a lot of instances where monsters aren't carrying treasure, but the only time I got any treasure at all was from some grimlocks when I found their lair and got 800 gold, when I used to get several thousand from fights that size. Most fights don't get me anything at all, even with creatures that normally used to have a lot of gold.

Also Noli, I'm nearly level 10 and have incredible equipment, even now dragons aren't really worth it. They hit too hard and their breath weapons are far too powerful. Unless you find a dragon by itself, it is probably best for you to just run. Usually a party can handle a single dragon, even an ancient one, but they struggle if they are being attacked by a group.

Yes, I'm finding I have to be very selective when fighting monsters in the overworld area. If it's a set of monsters that is going to take awhile to fight it's an automatic run away for me. I only take on monsters I think will result in finding their lair when defeated and are in the single to double digit size, completely ignoring the large packs of monsters regardless of who they are in the 50-80 quantity range. Fights like these take so long that I am finding myself only able to do a few fights before I have to log off, so for time sake I don't fight them unless I have to. It's basically a time spent vs. reward mentality for me. This is compounded by the fact that I use a Frost spear that takes even longer to get through the battle dialogue "Random_Monster was frozen and dies. Macy kills random monster." and "Random monster was frozen for 3 damage. Macy hits random monster with her Frost Spear for 9 damage.". Due to the automatic 3 frost damage the dialogues also never stack together as with other weapons that kill multiple smaller enemies i.e. "Macy kills 5 Random monster". This isn't a complaint but more of an explanation of why I am so selective of the types of fights I typically avoid.

I've also noticed that fighting anything other than the cluster of monsters that contains the dungeon boss is also not worth fighting, as most take awhile to kill with no reward other than experience. Previously I would clear out everything such as mummies and shadows because I could get some gold off them, but now they are just speed bumps on the way to finding the boss.

Oh and I was very bummed out when the only item I've been able to find so far was a Javelin which sells for zero gold in the store.

Not sure about the frost spear myself so is good to know. The game will save in the middle of a fight though in case you are wondering. I get disconnected a lot (probably something on my end as it happens with a lot of other stuff I do on my echo) and when I come back, the fight is right where I left it. It is a bit of a pain dungeons but otherwise it isn't something you need to worry about.

as for big fights, I generally don't worry about it until we get into the triple digits with a lot of monsters and even then, I tear apart kobold groups numbering nearly 200 and if it is close to 150 goblins still go down easy for me.

If you are looking for a quick xp bump, I recommend you wander around swamps for dinosaurs, they have painfully high hp but they don't hit very hard considering and they give you a lot of xp. getting 30,000 or even as high as 60,000 xp for a single fight is not uncommon for my level 9 party. that said, I've never gotten any sort of treasure from any of them so if you need gold, go somewhere else.

jjaquinta I have a couple of questions. The first is how do the individual stats (Str, Dex, Const, Int, Wis, cha) affect how your character performs in battle? The second is that since your encounters with monsters will scale upward with your characters levels does it also scale downward if you were to overhaul your party by firing and hiring 6 new members of level 1? I know I could do this one character at a time since the experience is also scaled upward, but most fights consist of 5 rounds or more and it's a long time to try to avoid damage with only 10 - 14 hp, even if you try to strategically set your parties combat order.

I try to stick as closely as possible to the OSRIC rules. More or less, though, high strength will make it slightly easier to hit creatures with hand held weapons, and will do more damage with hand held weapons. High dexterity will make it easier to hit creature with missile weapons, and make it harder for you to be hit by creatures. High constitution will give you more hit points. I'm not sure there is currently any game effect from intelligence, wisdom or charisma.

Encounters are scaled based on a calculated challenge rating for your group. This is your average party level if you have six characters. If you have less, it's scaled downward. So it does adjust to your current party membership. This is then adjusted based on how far you are from the road. The further off a road you are, the more dangerous things you may encounter.

That being said, the heuristics I have for assessing how hard a monster encounter is are not foolproof. They try to calculate a monster's rate of inflicting damage against an "average" party. So parties with special equipment will fare better. And monsters with special attacks will do better. And, of course, there is plenty of randomness in there to mix things up.

Generally when I'm low on hit points I tend to stick close to the road. When I'm bored or looking for a fight, I head off into the wilderness. You can pick your pain level.

Setting your party's combat order is a good thing. Defensive characters at the front, and missile users at the back. Monsters that come in large numbers, though, will envelop your party and will be able to attack your real line troops. I also have a bug outstanding to look at where monsters seem to be able to attack second line fighters when they shouldn't. I've seen it happen once or twice, but I was working on something else and couldn't look at it closely at the time.

when I used to try and use ranged weapons, I noticed this in my party where my ranged guys got picked on a lot even when they shouldn't have been at risk so it isn't just you that has noticed that. That said, I'm perfectly happy keeping my all-melee party right now so no hurry.

So just to be clear if your party goes in this order when you ask "Who" Joe, George, Ruby, Macy, Noa, and John the front row starts with Joe then George so forth and so on? Regardless if this is how it works I've also had characters who were using a ranged weapon that are constantly picked on all the time. I've gotten into the habit of changing up where my characters are mid fight when I notice one of them getting more attention than others.

Okay this may sound like a strange question, but once you enter the Premium area is it possible to go back to the non-premium area? I was right next to an area I was trying to clear out and didn't realize I'd be completely moved to a different map. TO be honest I didn't really know what would happen, but if not I am sure I will find something else to do here.

I think maybe some of the cities might have a way to get you back, but I'm not sure, there's nothing in the normal area you can't do in the premium area and there are a lot of things in the premium area you can't do in the normal one, so not sure if you'd even want to go back.

As for party order and such, all I know is that characters equipped with ranged weapons will try to keep their distance and theoretically are supposed to be off-limits to enemy melee provided that there aren't too many foes, but in practice it doesn't seem to work that way.

I've typically never had issues with my party switching out to range weapons when they are no longer in hand to hand combat, but they do get picked on a lot.

As far as the non-premium area goes, my thought was that I had stumbled upon a couple of temples/shrines that I wanted to clear out but didn't realize I would get transported to 0, 0, 0 , 0 once I entered the premium area. Not even that big an issue, just finding new ones to clear out was pure luck and work for me and didn't want to miss the chance to get 3 blessings.

I didn't get a chance to explore the premium area yet as I had done it late last night, which took me so long because Amazon took me awhile to delete and add a new payment method. Regardless I am in now and plan on doing some old fashioned exploring once my son is off to school.

On a completely side note, does training Alexa to your voice help her understand certain commands such as North and South? I have no clue what she thinks I am saying but at least once every 5 -10 movements using the words North or South causes her to say "Goodbye". I'm just trying to think of anything that I can do that will help her understand me better on my side and help compensate for her limitations.

I have that problem sometimes. It can get garbled up and get things messed up if you either aren't facing the speaker or there is some background noise like a tv or a kitchen appliance like a dishwasher or even a laundry washer or dryer doing its thing nearby. Best to try and eliminate ambient noise and speak towards it when you can.

and also the best part is that there are more pantheons to play with, if Roman isn't your thing, and then there are more worlds to explore. not to mention a couple unique dungeons like the goblin warrens and other cool things.

Quick update: pushed a fix just now for combat. Turns out adversaries were just attacking people randomly. Not what I intended! That should be fixed now. When two side pair off, it matches up enemies against allies. Six small creatures match one human, or four medium sized, or 2 large ones. If there are leftover monsters after facing off against the front rank, second rank fighters are pushed into the first rank. In other words the monsters can envelop the players and get at the missile fighters.The fix I put in biases monsters to fight the person they are faced off against. If that person has died by the time it is their turn in a round, then they can pick someone random.People are also faced off in marching order. So putting your toughest or most defensive character at the front of the line means they will see the most combat.

I can't remember if I answered: there are 100 copper pieces to a gold piece, 10 silver pieces, 2 electrum pieces, and a platinum is worth 5 gold. I've added an item to the backlog to report the "total value" of a haul to make things easier.

There are three scattered tri-form arches that will take you back to the free area. They were use to get you from the free area to the premium area when it was in beta mode. So they would have been easy to find if you had come through them. If you haven't, it's not going to be easy. If you would really like to go back to the free area, I can transport you there.

This really sucks, I have no idea why it won't let me in. I am assume it has something do with language since it keeps telling me in a different language the same error message. as well as "Lang" in the error message.

It also only seems to be affecting this skill, as I can get into every other skill I have enabled.

I've been getting e-mail alerts of exceptions. Unfortunately they are bereft of useful information. From context I see them being reported near two new-ish features (vortexes and yet-unfinished weather). So I put in some protective catches and deployed a patch. I'll check in the morning and see if that produced better functionality and/or more useful diagnostics.